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View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoCourtney Hergesheimer | DISPATCHMarquis Peaks, 18, of Columbus, uses the telephone in the west block of the Fairfield County jail, where first- and second-degree felony suspects are held. Only two inspectors are tasked with inspecting 349 jails across the state.

Proposed minimum standards for 20,000 inmates in Ohio jails would allow sheriffs to limit
prisoners to two meals a day, reduce showers to every other day and shorten visitation time.

The new rules also would greatly improve treatment of mentally ill inmates but would
dramatically reduce mandatory training for jail employees and potentially allow sheriffs to better
fend off prisoner lawsuits.

The proposed changes result from a 2012 statewide jail survey and assessment.

Enforcing the standards is another matter. After more than four years with no jail inspections,
now only two state employees are assigned to inspect 92 full-service jails, 13 minimum-security
jails, 90 12-day jails, 18 12-hour jails and 136 temporary holding facilities.

Bob Cornwell, executive director of the Buckeye State Sheriffs’ Association, bluntly admits that
much of the motivation behind the revised standards is to limit liability and accompanying costs of
prisoner lawsuits. Sheriffs say their jails and budgets are straining under the increased costs of
housing, feeding and caring for a growing number of prisoners.

“The lawsuits on jail conditions have become a real problem. Lowering the standards reduces the
liability,” Cornwell said. “These suits are being settled for tens of thousands of dollars; it’s
expensive to pay that kind of money.”

Ohio counties have paid out tens of millions of dollars in damages in recent years to prisoners
or their families who won lawsuits claiming that inmates were confined in inhumane conditions or
mistreated by jailers, in some cases dying in custody.

While not “driven by the dollar,” the standards involve “common sense” changes that would allow
sheriffs to operate their jails more efficiently, Cornwell said. The new rules are not “cruel and
unusual punishment,” he added, noting that sheriffs have a stake in running decent jails to both
avoid liability and ensure that their jail staffs and prisoners have a safe environment.

Response mixed

Alphonse Gerhardstein, a Cincinnati lawyer who handles numerous cases involving medical care and
mental-health treatment for inmates in jails and state prisons, ripped the proposed changes.

“They don’t want to be held accountable. They need to be vigorously watched,” Gerhardstein said.
“This represents a step backward, a loosening of oversight by the state. I think this will increase
their liability.”

He faulted the prisons agency for having just two people assigned to jail inspections. “They
just can’t do the job. It’s not time to relax standards; it’s time to strengthen them.”

Similarly, James Kronenberger of CURE, an Ohio advocacy group for inmates and their families,
said he fears the changes would “make it more difficult for inmates and families. We’ll definitely
be opposed to many of them.”

“Cutting down meals from three to two is bad,” he said. “Even three meals isn’t enough with what
they serve.”

Sara Andrews, court and community manager for state prisons, said going from three meals to two
won’t change the caloric content for inmates; they will get more food at each meal, which can be no
more than 14 hours apart.

But officials of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Ohio say they are very encouraged about
rule changes that would, for the first time, put prisoners’ mental-health needs on par with medical
needs.

Jail officials must establish a process in which incoming inmates are questioned about suicidal
thoughts and mental-health concerns; offer 24-hour access to mental health care; and ensure that
inmates get the medications they need.

“Unfortunately, many jails are housing people with these illnesses,” NAMI Ohio Executive
Director Terry Russell said. “The jails have been a problem. They’re independent. ... There are
jails in Ohio where patients on psychotropic medications are removed from all medications. That’s
just a disaster.”

Sheriff’s Lt. Troy Rine, administrator of the Pickaway County jail, which opened in 1992 and
houses 110 prisoners, still is evaluating the proposal, but he said, “We’re not going to change our
standards because they are changing the minimums.”

Three daily meals, daily showers and other practices will remain the same, he said.

Keeping up with the rules

Monitoring compliance with jail standards is up to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and
Correction, which runs the adult prison system but not the jails, which are locally operated.

No jail inspections took place for more than four years, but the agency is ramping up an
inspection program using the new rules, said Sara Andrews, court and community manager for state
prisons.

Doing that, however, will require on-site inspections at 349 jails across the state. Those
inspections, which are to examine 150 standards at each jail, are supposed to be done annually,
although only two people are assigned to the job.

Andrews said the agency will do whatever it must to complete inspections, including bringing on
more personnel.

The Correctional Institution Inspection Committee, another state agency, offered to help with
inspections 18 months ago, but it backed down after receiving a sharply worded warning from state
Sen. Keith Faber, R-Celina.

Faber was not on the committee, nor was he Senate president, when he sent a letter to Joanna
Saul, CIIC director, saying she was not authorized and did not have funding to inspect jails. Doing
so was “impractically duplicative” of the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction’s work, he
said.

But no inspections were being done at the time because of a combination of budget constraints
and other duties.

The death of Edward Peterson on Sept. 4, 2011, at the Franklin County jail on Jackson Pike shows
why jail standards matter.

Peterson, 48, a mentally ill Columbus man who suffered from heart problems, died in an isolation
cell described in a jail memo as “a mass of putrid filth.” He did not have a mattress. Trash and
feces were so bad that Columbus paramedics called to the scene declared a “bio alert” and had to be
decontaminated.

“Updated rules would be great, but if the ones that are already in place are not followed, it's
fair to say that the new ones will not be either,” said Columbus lawyer Joseph Russell, who filed a
wrongful-death and civil-rights lawsuit on behalf of Peterson’s family.

Although Franklin County sheriff’s officials declined to comment, Maj. Douglas Edgington,
commander of the Jackson Pike jail, accused the jail staff in an internal memo shortly after
Peterson’s death of “deliberate indifference and deceptive practice.”

He also said it was “painfully evident in that our staff failed to provide this inmate that
which is required in accordance (with) the minimum standards for jails in Ohio.”